Chapter XXVI
A Dust-Storm
It had been a beautiful day of sunshine when Lee left Live-Oaks to ride to the Ninety-Four Ranch. Not a breath of wind stirred. The desert slept in a warm, golden bath. It was peaceful as old age.
But as the sun slipped past the meridian, gusts swept across the sands and whipped into the air inverted cones that whirled like vast tops in a wild race to nowhere. The air waves became more frequent and more furious. When Lee passed the buckboard driver, the whole desert seemed alive with stinging sand.
He called something to her that was lost in the wind. The girl waved at him a gauntleted hand. She had been out in dust-storms before and was not in the least alarmed. Across the lower part of her face she had tied a silk handkerchief to protect her mouth and nostrils from the sand.
The mail carrier had scarcely disappeared before the fury of the wind increased. It lashed the ground with heavy whips, raging and screaming in shrill, whistling frenzy, until the desert rose in terror and began to shift.
Lee bent her head to escape the sand that filled her eyes and nostrils and beat upon her cheeks so unmercifully. She thought perhaps the tempest would abate soon and she slipped from the saddle to crouch close to the body of the horse for protection. Instead of decreasing, the gale rose to a hurricane. It was as if the whole sand plain was in continuous, whirling motion.
The horse grew frightened and restless. It was a young three-year-old Jim Clanton had broken for her. Somehow—Lee did not know quite the way it happened—the bridle rein slipped from her fingers and the colt was gone.
She ran after the pony—called to it frantically—fought in pursuit against the shrieking blasts. The animal disappeared, swallowed in the whirl-wind that encompassed her and it. Lee sank down, sheltering her face with her arms against the pelting sand sleet.
But years in the outdoor West had given Lee the primal virtue, courage. She scorned a quitter, one who lay down or cried out under punishment. Now she got to her feet and faced the storm. The closeness of her horizon—her outstretched arms could almost touch the limit of it—confused the mind of the girl. She no longer knew east from west, north from south. With a sudden sinking of the heart she realized that she was lost in this gray desert blizzard.
Blindly she chose a direction and plunged forward. At times the wind hit her like a moving wall and flung her to the ground. She would lie there panting for a few moments, struggle to her knees, and creep on till in a lull she could again find her feet.
How much of this buffeting, she wondered, could one endure and live? The air was so filled with dust that it was almost impossible to get a breath. Her muscles ached with the flogging they were receiving. She was so exhausted, her forces so spent, that the hinges of her knees buckled under her.
One of her feet struck against a rise in the ground and she stumbled. She lay there motionless for what seemed a long time before it penetrated her consciousness that one of her palms pained from a jagged cut the fall had caused. Her body lay on sharp-pointed rocks. As far as they could reach, the groping fingers of the girl found nothing but hard, rough stone. Then, in a flash, the truth came to her. She had reached the Mal-Pais.
She crept across the lava in an effort to escape the strangling wind. Its rage followed her, drove the girl deeper into the bad lands. A renewal of hope urged her on. In its rough terrain she might find shelter from the tornado. In short stages, with rests between, she pushed into the vitreous lake, dragged herself up from the terrace, fought forward doggedly for what seemed to her an age.
A crevice barred the way. The fissure was too wide to step across and was perhaps ten feet deep. Lee slid into it, slipped, and fell the last step or two of the descent. She lay where she had fallen, too worn out to move.
It must have been almost at once that she fell asleep.
The stars were out when she awakened, her muscles stiff and aching from the pressure of her weight upon the rock. The girl lay for a minute wondering where she was. Above was a narrow bar of starlit sky. The walls of her pit of refuge were within touch of her finger tips. Then memory of the storm and her escape from it flashed back to her.
She climbed easily the rough side of the cavern and looked around. The wind had died so that not even a murmur of it remained. As far as the eye could see the lava flow extended without a break. But she knew the cavern in which she had slept lay at a right angle to the line of her advance. All site had to do was to face forward and keep going till she reached the plain. The reasoning was sound, but it was based on a wrong premise. Lee had clambered out of the fissure on the opposite side from that by which she had entered. Every step she took now carried her farther into the bad lands.
Morning broke to find her completely at sea. Even the boasted weather of the Southwest played false. A drizzle of rain was in the air. Not until late in the afternoon did the sun show at all and by that time the wanderer was so deep in the Mal-Pais that when night closed down again she was still its prisoner.
She was hungry and fagged. The soles of her boots were worn out and her feet were badly blistered. Again she took refuge in a deep crevice for the night.
The loneliness appalled her. No living creature was to be seen. In all this awful desolation she was alone. Her friends at Live-Oaks would think she was at the Ninety-Four Ranch. Even if they searched for her she would never be found. After horrible suffering she would die of hunger and thirst. She broke down at last and wept herself to sleep.
Chapter XXVII
"A Lucky Guy"
Lee had the affrighted look of one roused suddenly from troubled dreams. The whimper that had drawn the attention of Prince must have come from her restless, tortured sleep. Not till his second match flared had she been really awake.
"Thank God!" he cried brokenly, all the pent emotion of the long night vibrant in his tremulous voice.
She began to sob, softly, pitifully.
The match went out, but even in the blackness of the pit he could not escape the look of suffering he had seen on her face. Her habit was to do all things with high spirit. He could guess how much she had endured to bring those hollow shadows under her dusky eyes. The woe of the girl touched his heart sharply, as if with the point of a rapier.
He stooped, lifted her gently, and gathered her like a hurt child into his arms. "You poor lost lamb," he murmured. And again he cried, "Thank God, I came in time."
Her arms crept round his neck. She clung to him for safety, fearfully, lest even now he might vanish from her sight. Long, ragged sobs shook the body resting in his arms. He whispered words of comfort, stroked gently the dark head of blue-black hair, held her firmly so that she might know she had found a sure refuge from the fate that had so nearly devoured her.
The spasmodic quivering of the body died away. She dabbed at her eyes with a rag of a handkerchief and withdrew herself from his arms.
"I'm a nice baby," she explained with a touch of self-contempt. "But it's been rather awful, Billie. I … I didn't know whether …"
"It's been the worst night of my life," he agreed. "I've been in hell for hours, dear. If—if anything had happened to you—"
The heart of the girl beat fast. She told herself he did not mean—could not mean what, with a sudden warmth of joy, her soul hunger had read into his words.
Prince uncorked his canteen and she drank. He gave her sandwiches and she devoured them. After he had helped her from the fissure he fired three shots. Faintly from the left came the answering bark of a revolver. What might almost have been an echo of it drifted from the right.
Lee Snaith was the most competent young woman the sheriff had ever met. He knew her self-reliant and had always guessed her sufficient to herself. Toward him especially he had sensed a suggestion of cool hostility. They had been friends, but with a distinct note of reservation on her part.
To-night the mask was off. She had come too close to raw reality to think of her pride. The morning light was sifting into the sky now. Billie could see the girl more clearly as she sat on a slab of rock waiting for the other searchers to join them. Was it his imagination that found in her an unwonted shyness of the dark eyes, a gentle timidity of manner when she looked at him?
His emotion still raced at high tide. What an incomparable mate she would be for any man! The rich contralto of her voice, the slow, graceful turn of the exquisite head, the vividness she brought to all her activities! How easy it was to light in her fine eyes laughter, indignation, the rare smile of understanding! Life with her would be an adventure into the hill-tops. With all his heart he yearned to take it beside her.
There were strange flashes in his eyes to-night that signaled to her a message she had despaired of ever receiving. The long lashes of the girl fell to the hot cheeks. A pulse of excitement beat in her blood. A few minutes before she had clung to him despairingly. Now she wanted to run away and hide.
He stepped close to her and let his hand fall lightly on her arm.
"I've been blind all these years, Lee," he told her. "It's you I love."
She stole a little look at him with shy, incredulous eyes. "Have you forgotten—Polly?"
"I haven't been in love with her for years, but I didn't know it till about the Christmas holidays. She was a habit with me. There never was a sweeter girl than Polly Roubideau. I'll always think a heap of her. But—well, she had more sense than I had—knew all the time we weren't cut out for each other." He laughed a little, flushing with embarrassment. It is not the easiest thing in the world to explain to a girl why you have neglected her in favor of another.
Lee trembled. The desire was strong in her to seize her happiness while she could. Surely she had waited long enough for it. But some impulse of fair play to him or of justice to herself held back the tide of love she longed to release.
"I think … you are impulsive," she said at last. "If you have anything you want to tell me, better wait until …"
"Not another moment!" he cried. "I've been in torment all night. I … I thought I'd lost you forever. You don't care for me, of course. You never have liked me very well, but—"
"Haven't I?" she breathed softly, not looking at him.
Love irradiated and warmed her. She forgot all she had suffered during the years she had waited for him to know his mind. She forgot the privations of the past two days. Her eyes were tender with the mist of unshed tears.
"It's going to be the biggest thing in my life. If there's any chance at all I'll wait as long as you like. Of course, the idea's new to you because you haven't ever thought of me that way—"
"You know so much about it," she replied, a faint smile in her dark eyes that had in it something of wistfulness, something of self-mockery. She looked directly at him and let him have it full in the face. "I ought to be ashamed of it, I suppose, but I'm not. I've thought of you—that way—lots of times. All girls do, when they meet a man they like."
"You like me?"
She might have told him that her heart had been his ever since that first week when she had met him and Clanton on the river. She might have added that all he had needed to do was to whisper "Come" and she would have galloped across New Mexico to meet him. But she made no such confession.
"Yes, I … like you," she said, a little tremor in her voice.
He noticed that she did not look at him. Her eyes had fallen to the fingers laced together on her lap. Under compulsion of his steady gaze she lifted her lashes at last. What he read there was beyond belief. The wonder of it lifted his feet from the earth.
"Lee!" he cried, joy and fear in the balance.
She answered his unspoken question with a little nod.
His hand shook. "I've been a blind idiot, dear. I never guessed such a thing."
"You were thinking about Polly all the time. I don't blame you. She's the sweetest thing I ever knew."
Billie sat down on the spar of rock beside her. His hand slipped down her arm till it covered hers. With the contact there came to him a flood of courage. He took her in his arms and kissed her with infinite tenderness.
Still unstrung from her adventures, she wept a little into his shoulder out of a full heart.
"D—don't mind me," she urged. "It's just because I'm so happy."
If Clanton, when he found them together a few minutes afterward, guessed what had happened, he gave no evidence of it but a grin, unless his later comment had a cryptic meaning. "I'll bet Billie is the glad lad at findin' you. He always was a lucky guy."
"I think I'm a little lucky too," Lee said with a grave smile.
Before starting, Prince examined the soles of the girl's boots. Out of his hat he fashioned a pair of overshoes and fastened them with strings to her feet.
"They'll help some," he promised. "I reckon you're not goin' to do much walkin' anyhow with three husky men along."
By this time the searcher on the other flank had joined them. The return trip was a long, hard one, but with Billie on one side of her, and Jim on the other, Lee found it easy travelling. They aided her over the sharp rocks and lifted her across the rougher stretches of lava.
At the edge of the lava bed a buggy was waiting to take Lee to Live-Oaks in case she should be found. Prince helped Lee in and took the place of the boy who had driven it out.
Clanton put his foot on the hub of the wheel. "Just a minute, Billie. I'm wanted for the killin' of Homer Webb. I didn't shoot him an' I don't know who did. Somebody must have been lyin' there in the chaparral waitin' for him. I'll give myself up an' stand trial if you'll guarantee me fair play. No lynchin' bee. No packed jury. All the cards dealt fair an' honest above the table."
The sheriff had smiled at Pauline Roubideau's implicit faith in Jim Clanton's word. But now, face to face with his friend, he too believed and felt a load lift from his heart.
"That's a deal, Jim. You won't have to reckon with any mob or any hand-picked jury, I'll tell you the truth. I thought you did it. But if you say you didn't, that goes with me. I'll see you through."
"Good enough. I'll drop in to-morrow an' we can fix things up. I'd like to be tried outside of Washington County. There's too much prejudice here one way an' another. Well, take this little lady home an' scold her good for the way she's been actin'. She'd ought to get married to a man that will look after her an' not let her go buckin' into cyclones."
Billie smiled. "I'll talk to her about that, old scout."
Miss Snaith blushed furiously, but the best she could do was a bit of weak repartee. "I used to have hopes that you would ask me, Jim."
Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em laughed with friendly malice. "I used to have hopes, too, in that direction, Lee, but I haven't any more. You be good to her or we also-rans will boil you in oil, Billie."
Chapter XXVIII
Sheriff Prince Functions
"Yippy yip yip yip!"
Old Reb, Quantrell's ex-guerrilla, now boss of mule-skinners for Prince, galloped down the street waving an old dusty white hat. Women and children and old men dribbled out from the houses, all eager for the news.
"Billie he found Miss Lee in the Mal-Pais. That boy sure had his lucky pants on to-day. She's all right too. I done seen her myself—just a mite tuckered out, as you might say," explained the former cowpuncher.
Live-Oaks shook hands with itself in exuberant joy. For an hour the school bell pealed out the good news. A big bonfire blazed in the court-house square. Wise dames busied themselves baking bread and frying doughnuts and roasting beef for the rescue party now homeward bound. It was a certainty that their men-folks would all be hungry and ready for a big feed.
By noon most of the searchers were back in town and the saloons were doing big business. When Prince drove down the main street of Live-Oaks an hour later, the road was jammed as for a Fourth-of-July celebration. Tired though she was, Lee had not the heart to disappoint these good friends. She went to the picnic ground at Fremont's Grove and was hugged and kissed by all the woman at the dinner. She wept and was wept over till her lover decided she had had all the emotion that was good for her, whereupon he took her back to the home of her aunt and with all the newborn authority of his position ordered her to bed.
"But it's only three o'clock in the afternoon," Lee protested.
"Good-night," answered Billie inexorably.
She surrendered meekly. "If you say I must, my lord. I am awf'lly tired." Little globes of gladness welled up in her eyes. "Everybody's so good to me, Billie. I didn't know folks were so kind. I can't think what I can ever do to pay them back."
"I'll tell you how. You be good to yourself, honey," he told her with a sudden wave of emotion as he caught and held her tight in his arms. "You quit takin' chances with blizzards an' crazy gunmen an'—"
"—And horsethieves hidden in the chaparral?" she asked with a flash of demure eyes.
"You're goin' to take an awful big chance with one ex-horsethief. Lee,
I'm the luckiest fellow on earth."
She nestled closer to him. Her lips trembled to his kiss.
"Billie, you're sure, aren't you?" she whispered. "It wasn't just pity for me."
He chose to reassure her after the fashion of a lover, in that wordless language which is as old as Eden.
His heart was full of her as he swung down the street buoyantly. He had known her saucy, scornful, and imperious. He had known her gay and gallant, had been the victim of her temper. Occasionally he had seen glimpses of tenderness toward Pauline and of motherliness toward Jim Clanton. But never until last night had he found her dependent and clinging. Her defense against him had been a manner of cool self-reliance. In the stress of her need that had been swept aside to show her flamy and yet shy, quick with innocent passion. She wanted him for a mate, just as he wanted her, and she made no concealment of it. In the candor of her love he exulted.
Lee slept round the clock almost twice and appeared for a late breakfast.
Her aunt told her some news with which Live-Oaks was buzzing.
Go-Get-'Em Jim had ridden into town, stopped at the sheriff's office, and demanded cynically the thousand dollars offered by the Webb estate for his arrest.
"He'll come to no good end," prophesied Miss Snaith, senior.
"You don't quite understand him, aunt," protested Lee. "That's just his way. He likes to grand-stand, and he does it rather well. But he isn't half so bad as he makes out. He says he did not shoot Mr. Webb, and we feel sure he didn't."
"Of course he says so," replied the older woman indignantly. "Why wouldn't he say so? But Dad Wrayburn was there and saw it all. There has been a lot too much promiscuous killing and he's one of the worst of the lot, your Jim Clanton is. Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em, indeed! I hope the law goes and gets him now it has a chance."
The opinion of Lee's aunt was in accord with the general sentiment. Washington County had within the past year suffered a change of heart. It had put behind its back the wild and reckless days of its youth when every man was a law to himself. Bar-room orators talked virtuously of law and order. They said it behooved the county to live down its evil reputation as the worst in the United States. Times had changed. The watchword now should be progress. It ought no longer to be a recommendation to a man that he could bend a six-gun surer and quicker than other folks. "Movers" in white-topped wagons were settling up the country. A railroad had pushed in to Live-Oaks. There was a lot of talk about Eastern capital becoming interested in irrigation and mining. It was high time to remember that Live-Oaks and Los Portales were not now frontier camps, but young cities.
Since Live-Oaks had been good for so short a time it wanted to prove by a shining example how it abhorred the lawlessness of its youth. At this inopportune moment Clanton gave himself up to be tried for the murder of Homer Webb.
When the news spread that Clanton had been given a change of venue and was to be tried at Santa Fe, the citizens of Live-Oaks were distinctly annoyed. It was known that the sheriff had always been a good friend of the accused man. The whisper passed that if he ever took Go-Get-'Em Jim out of the county the killer would be given a chance to escape.
Into town from the chaparral drifted the enemies Clanton had made during his career as a gunman. Yankie and Albeen and Dumont and Bancock moved to and fro in the crowds at the different gambling places and saloons. Even Roush, who in the past three years had never given young Clanton an opportunity to meet him face to face, stole furtively into the tendejons of the Mexican quarter and spent money freely in treating. Among the natives Go-Get-'Em Jim was in ill-repute for shooting a bad man named Juan Ortez who had attempted to terrorize the town while on a spree.
"We're spendin' a lot of good money on this job. We'd ought to pull it off," Dumont whispered to Albeen.
"Whose money?" asked the one-armed man cynically.
It struck him as an ironic jest that the money they had got from the sale of Homer Webb's cattle should be spent to bring about the lynching of the man who had killed him.
Both the sheriff and his deputy were out of town rounding up a half-breed Mexican who had stabbed another at a dance. They reached Live-Oaks with their prisoner about the middle of the afternoon. Lee was waiting for them impatiently at the court-house.
"They're planning to lynch Jim," she told Prince abruptly.
"Who's goin' to do all that?" he asked.
"The riff-raff of the county are back of it, but the worst of it is that they've got a lot of good people in with them. Some of the Flying V Y riders are in town too. I never saw so much drinking before."
"When is it to be?"
"I don't know."
"Who told you?"
"Bud Proctor. He says Yankie and Albeen and that crowd are spending hundreds of dollars at the bars."
"I knew there was somethin' on foot soon as we hit town—felt it in the air." The sheriff looked at his watch. "We can just catch the afternoon train, Jack. Take this bird downstairs an' lock him up. I'll join you in a minute."
"What are you going to do?" asked Lee as soon as they were alone.
"Goin' to slip Jim aboard the train an' take him to Santa Fe."
"Can you do it without being seen?"
"I'll tell you that later," he answered with a grim smile. "Much obliged, honey. I'm goin' to be right busy now, but I'll see you soon as I get back to town."
Lee nodded good-bye and wait out. She liked it in him that just now he had no time even for her. From the door she glanced back. Already he was busy getting his guns ready.
Prince got his keys and unlocked the room where Clanton was. Jim was on the bed reading an old newspaper.
"Hello, Billie," he grinned.
"We're leaving on the afternoon train, Jim. Get a move on you an' hustle yore things together."
"Thought you weren't goin' till next week."
"Changed my mind. Jim, there's trouble afoot. Yore enemies are all in town. I want to get you away."
Clanton did not bat an eye. "Plannin' a necktie party, are they?"
"They've got notions. Mine are different." "Do I get a gun if it comes to a showdown, Billie?"
"You do. I'll appoint you a deputy."
Jim laughed. "That sounds reasonable."
Goodheart joined them. The three men left the back door of the court-house and cut across the square. The station was three blocks distant. Before they had covered a hundred yards a boy on the other side of the street stopped, stared at them, and disappeared into the nearest saloon.
The prisoner looked at his friend and grinned gayly. "Somethin' stirrin' soon. We're liable to have a breeze in this neighborhood, looks like."
They reached the station without being molested, but down the street could be seen much bustle of men running to and fro. Prince looked at them anxiously.
"The clans are gathering," murmured Clanton nonchalantly, his hands in his pockets. "Don't you reckon maybe you'll have to feed me to the wolves after all, Billie?"
A saddled horse blinked in the sun beside the depot, the bridle rein trailing on the ground. Its owner sat on a dry-goods box and whittled. Jim glanced at the bronco casually. Jack Goodheart also observed the cowpony. He whispered to the sheriff.
Prince turned to his prisoner. "Jim, you can take that horse an' hit the dust, if you like."
"Meanin' that you can't protect me?"
The salient jaw of the sheriff tightened. He looked what he was, a man among ten thousand, quiet and forceful, strong as tested steel.
"You'll have exactly the same chance to weather this that we will."
A mob of men was moving down the street in loose formation. There was still time for a man to fling himself into the saddle and gallop away.
"You'd rather I'd stay, Billie."
"Yes. I'm sheriff. I'd like to show this drunken outfit they can't take a prisoner from me."
Clanton gave a little whoop of delight. "Go to it, son. You're law west of the Pecos. Let's see you make it stick."
Live-Oaks was as yet the terminus of the railroad. The train backed into the station just as the first of the mob arrived.
"Nothin' doin', Prince," announced Yankie, swaggering forward. "You're not goin' to take this fellow Clanton away. We've come to get him."
"That's right," agreed Albeen.
Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em grinned. "Makes twice now you've come to get me."
"We didn't make it go last time. Different now," said Bancock, moving forward.
"That's near enough," ordered Prince. "You've made a mistake, boys. I'm sheriff of Washington County, and this man's my prisoner."
"He's yore old side kick, too, ain't he?" jeered Yankie.
Goodheart, following the orders he had received, moved forward to the engine and climbed into the cab beside the engineer and fireman. The sheriff and his prisoner backed to the steps of the smoking-car. Billie had had a word with the brakeman, his young friend Bud Proctor, who had at once locked the door at the other end of the smoker.
"Now," said Prince in a low voice.
Jim ran up lightly to the platform of the coach and passed inside. A howl of anger rose from the mob. There was a rush forward. Billie was on the lower step. His long leg lifted, the toe caught Yankie on the point of the chin, and the rustler went back head first into the crowd as though he had been shot from a catapult.
Instantly Prince leaped for the platform and whirled on the mob. He held now a gun in each hand. His eyes glittered dangerously as they swept the upturned faces. They carried to every man in the crowd the message that his prisoner could not be taken as long as the sheriff was alive.
Clanton threw open a window of the coach, rested his arms on the sill, and looked out. Again there was a roar of rage and a forward surge of the dense pack on the station platform.
"He ain't even got irons on the man's hands!" a voice shouted. "It's a frame-up to git him away from us!"
"Don't hide back there in the rear, Roush. Come right up to the front an' tell me that," called back Prince. "You're right about one thing. I don't need to handcuff Clanton. He has surrendered for trial, an' I'm here to see he gets a fair one. I'll do it if I have to put irons in his hands—shootin' irons."
Jim Clanton, his head framed in the window, laughed insolently. He was a picture of raffish, devil-may-care ease.
"Don't let Billie bluff you, boys. We can't bump off more'n a dozen or so of you. Hop to it."
"You won't laugh so loud when the rope's round yore gullet," retorted
Albeen.
"That rope ain't woven, yet," flung back the young fellow coolly.
Even as he spoke a lariat whistled through the air. Jim threw up a hand and the loop slid harmlessly down the side of the car. One of the riders of the Flying V Y had tried to drag the prisoner out with a reata.
"You mean well, but you'll never win a roping contest, Syd," jeered Clanton. "Good of you an' all my old friends to gather here to see me off, I see you back there, Roush. It's been some years since we met, an' me always lookin' for you to say to you a few well-chosen words. I'll shoot straighter next time."
The vigilantes raised a howl of fury. They were like a wolf pack eager for the kill. Between them and their prey stood one man, cool, indomitable, steady as a rock. He held death in each hand, every man present knew it. They could get Clanton if they were willing to pay the price, but though there were game men in the mob, not one of them wanted to be the first to put his foot on the lower step of the coach.
From the other end of the car came the sudden noise of hammering. Some one had found a sledge in the baggage-room and with a dozen armed men back of him was trying to break down the door.
Prince called to his prisoner. "You've got to get in this, Jim. I appoint you deputy sheriff. Unstrap this belt from my waist. Take the other end of the car an' hold it. No shootin' unless it comes to a showdown. Understand?"
Clanton nodded. His eyes gleamed. "I'll behave proper, Billie."
Five seconds later the beating on the door stopped. The eyes of the big blacksmith with the hammer popped out with a ludicrous terror. Go-Get-'Em Jim was standing in the aisle grinning at him with a six-gun in each hand. With a wild whoop the horseshoer dropped the sledge and turned. He flung himself down the steps carrying with him half a dozen others. Not till he was safe in his own shop two blocks away did he stop running.
A shrill whistle rang out from the side of the train farthest from the station. The wheels began to move slowly. There was a rush for the engine. Jack Goodheart stood in the door of the cab ready for business.
"No passengers allowed here, boys," he announced calmly. "Take the coaches in the rear."
A dozen revolvers cracked. There was a rattle of breaking windows. The engine, baggage-car, and smoker moved forward, leaving the rest of the train on the track.
Men, swarming like ants, had climbed to the top of the cars, evidently with some idea of getting at their victim from above. Some of these were on the forward coaches. They began to drop off hurriedly as the station fell to the rear.
The wheels turned faster. Bud Proctor swung aboard and joined the sheriff.
"I cut off the other cars and gave the signal to start," he explained triumphantly.
"Good boy, Bud. Knew I could tie to you," Prince answered with the warm smile that always won him friends.
They passed into the car together. Clanton was leaning far out of the window waving a mocking hand of farewell to the crowd on the platform. He drew his head in and handed the weapons back to his friend.
"Don't I make a good deputy, Billie? I didn't fire even once."
Chapter XXIX
"They Can't Hang Me If I ain't There"
The jury brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree. Clanton was sentenced to be hanged at Live-Oaks four weeks after the day the trial ended. Prince himself had been called back to Washington County to deal with a band of rustlers who had lately pulled off a series of bold, wholesale cattle thefts. He left Goodheart to bring the prisoner back with him in case of a conviction.
The deputy sheriff left the train at Los Vegas, to which point Prince had sent a man with horses to meet Jack and the convicted murderer. It was not likely that the enemies of Clanton would make another attempt to frustrate the law, but there was a chance that they would. Goodheart did not take the direct road to Live-Oaks, but followed the river valley toward Los Portales.
The party reached the Roubideau ranch at dusk of the third night. Pauline had been at the place three months keeping house for her father. She flew to meet Jim, her eyes filled with a divine pity. Both hands went out to his manacled ones impulsively. Her face glowed with a soft, welcoming warmth.
"You poor boy! You poor, poor boy!" she cried. Then, flaming, she turned on Goodheart: "Bel et bien! Why do you load him down with chains? Are you afraid of him?"
The deputy flushed. "I have no right to take any chances of an escape.
You know that."
"I know he is innocent. Why did they find him guilty?"
"I had no evidence," explained Jim simply. "Dad Wrayburn swore I shot twice at Webb just before I disappeared in the brush. Then a shot came out of the chaparral. It's not reasonable to suppose some one else fired it, especially when the bullet was one that fitted a forty-four."
"But you didn't fire it. You told me so in your letter."
"My word didn't count with the jury. I'd have to claim that, anyhow, to save my life. My notion is that the bullet didn't come from a six-gun at all, but from a seventy-three rifle. But I can't prove that either."
"It isn't fair. It—it's an outrage." Polly burst into tears and took the slim young fellow into her arms. "They ought to know you wouldn't do that. Why didn't your friends tell them so?"
He smiled, a little wistfully. "A gunman doesn't have friends, Polly. Outside of you an' Lee an' Billie I haven't any. All the newspapers in the territory an' all the politicians an' most of the decent people have been pullin' for a death sentence. Well, they've got it." He stroked her hair softly. "Don't you worry, girl. They won't get a chance to hang me."
Pauline released him, dabbed at her eyes, and ran, choking, into the house.
"You've got to be in trouble to make a real hit with Miss Roubideau," suggested the lank deputy, a little bitterly. "I'll take those bracelets off now, Clanton. You can wash for supper."
Polly saw to it, anyhow, that the prisoner had the best to eat there was in the house. She made a dinner of spring chicken, mashed potatoes, hot biscuits, jelly, and apple pie.
A rider for the Flying V Y dropped in after they had eaten and bridled like a turkey cock at sight of Clanton.
"Don't you let him git away from you, Jack," he warned the officer. "We're allowin' to have a holiday on the sixth up at our place so as to go to the show. It is the sixth, ain't it?" he jeered, turning to the handcuffed man on the lounge.
"The sixth is correct," answered Jim coolly, meeting him eye to eye.
"You wouldn't talk that way if Clanton was free," said Goodheart. "You're taggin' yoreself a bully an' a cheap skate when you do it."
"Say, is that any of yore business, Mr. Deputy Sheriff?"
"It is when you talk to my prisoner. Cut it out, Swartz."
"All right."
The cowpuncher turned to Pauline, who had come to the door and stood there. "You'll be goin' to the big show on the sixth, Miss Roubideau. Live-Oaks will be a sure-enough live town that day."
The young woman walked straight up to the big cowpuncher. Her eyes blazed. "Get out of this house. Don't ever come here again. Don't speak to me if you meet me."
The Flying V Y rider was taken aback. Like a good many young fellows within a radius of a hundred miles, he was a candidate for the favor of Pierre Roubideau's daughter.
"Why, I—I—" he stammered. "I didn't aim for to offend you. This fellow bushwhacked my boss. He—"
"That isn't true," she interrupted. "He didn't do it."
"Sure he did it. Go-Get-'Em Jim is a killer. A girl like you, Miss
Roubideau, has got no business stickin' up for a bad man who—"
"Didn't you hear me? I told you to go."
"You've been invited to remove yoreself from the place an' become a part of the outdoor scenery, Swartz," cut in Goodheart, a snap to his jaw. "I'd take that invite pronto if I was you."
The cowpuncher picked up his hat and walked out. The drawling voice of the prisoner followed him.
"Don't you worry, Polly. They can't hang me if I ain't there, can they?"
The deputy guessed that Pauline wished to talk alone with Clanton. Presently he arose and sauntered to the door. "I want to see yore father about some horses Billie needs. Back soon."
He gave them a half-hour, but he took pains to see that his assistant covered the back door while he watched the front of the house. The prisoner was handcuffed, but Jack did not intend to take any chances. Personally he believed that Clanton was guilty, but whether he was or not it was his duty to bring the convicted man safely to Live-Oaks. This he meant to do.
Chapter XXX
Polly has a Plan
Pauline moved across the room and sat down beside Jim. An eager light shone in her soft, brown eyes.
"Listen!" she ordered in a low voice. "I've got a plan. There's a chance that it will work, I think. But tell me first about your sleeping arrangements. Does Jack or the other guard sit up and watch you all the time?"
"No. The champion roper of New Mexico, Arizona, an' Texas throws the diamond hitch on yours truly. He does an expert job, tucks me up, an' says good-night. He knows I'm perfectly safe till mornin', especially since both he an' Brad sleep in the same room with me."
"Well, I'm going to give you dad's room." She leaned forward and whispered to him steadily for five minutes.
The sardonic mockery had vanished from the face of the prisoner. He listened, every nerve and fiber of him at alert attention. Occasionally he asked a question. Carefully she explained the plan, going over each detail of it again and again.
Jim Clanton was efficient. In those days it was a necessary quality for a bad man if he wished to continue to function. He offered a suggestion or two which Pauline incorporated in her proposed campaign of action. At best her scheme was hazardous. It depended upon all things dovetailing properly. But he was in no place to pick and choose. All he asked was a chance and an even break of luck.
"You dandy girl!" he cried softly, and took her two hands between the palms of his fettered ones. "I'm a scalawag, Polly. But if you pull this off for me, I'll right-about-face. That's a promise. Somehow I've never acted like I wanted to. I've done a heap of wild an' foolish things, an' I've killed whenever it was put up to me. I don't reckon any woman that married me would be real happy. But if you'll take a chance 111 go away from here an' well Make a fresh start. You're the only girl there is for me."
A faint smile lay in her eyes. "You used to think Lee was the only girl, didn't you?"
"Well, I don't now. I like Polly Roubideau better."
Abruptly she flung at him a statement that was a question. "You didn't kill Mr. Webb."
"No. I never killed but one man without givin' him an even break. That was Peg-Leg Warren, an' he was a cold-blooded murderer."
A troubled little frown creased her forehead. "I've thought for more than a year now that you—liked me that way. And I've had it in my mind a great deal as to what I ought to do if you spoke to me about it. I wish you had a good wife, Jim. Maybe she could save you from yourself."
"Mebbe she could, Polly."
The lashes of her eyelids fell. She looked down at the bands of iron around his small wrists. "I—I've prayed over it, Jim. But I'm not clear that I've found an answer." Her low voice broke a little. "I don't know what to say."
"Is it that you are afraid of what I'm goin' to be? Can't you trust yore life with me? I shouldn't think you could."
Her eyes lifted and met his bravely. "I think that wouldn't stop me if—if I cared for you that way."
"It's Billie Prince, then, is it?"
"No, it isn't Billie Prince. Never mind who it is. What I must decide is whether I can make you the kind of wife you need without being exactly—"
"In love with me," he finished for her.
"Yes. I've always liked you very much. You've been good to me. I love you like a brother, I think. Oh, I don't know how to say it."
"Let's get this straight, Polly. Is there some one else you love?"
A tide of color flooded her face to the roots of the hair. She met his steady look reluctantly.
"We needn't discuss that, Jim."
"Needn't we?" He laughed a little, but his voice was rough with feeling. "You're the blamedest little pilgrim ever I did see. What kind of a fellow do you think I am? I ain't good enough for you—not by a thousand miles. Even if you felt about me the way I do about you, it would be a big risk for you to marry me. But now—Sho, little missionary, I ain't so selfish as to let you sacrifice yore life for me."
"If I marry you it will be because I want to, Jim."
"You'll want to because you're such a good little Christian you think it's up to you to save a brand from the burning. But I won't let you do any such foolishness. You go marry that other man. If he's a good, square, decent fellow, you'll be a whole lot better off than if you tied up with a ne'er-do-well like me."
They heard a step on the porch.
"Don't forget. Three taps if you're alone in the room," she said in a whisper.
Goodheart came into the parlor with Pierre Roubideau. "Expect we'd better turn in, Clanton. We've got to make an early start to-morrow."
The prisoner rose at once. Pauline had drawn her father aside and was giving him some instructions. The old Frenchman nodded, smiling. He understood her little feminine devices and was a cheerful victim of them.
The young woman found a chance for a word alone with the deputy.
"I want to see you to-night, Jack, about—something." Her eyes were very bright and the color in the soft cheeks high. She spoke almost in a whisper.
The lank young sheriff had the soul of an inarticulate poet. Beneath the tan of his leathery face the blood burned. This was the first really kind word he had had from her since their arrival. All her solicitation had been for the condemned youth in his care. Perhaps all she wanted now was to ask some favor for Clanton, but hope leaped in his heart.
He made arrangements for the night in his usual careful way. It was not pleasant to have to watch the prisoner as a cat does a mouse, but Goodheart was thorough in whatever he undertook. Skillfully he tied Clanton in such a way as to allow him enough freedom of motion to change position without giving him enough to make it possible for him to untie himself.
"Back after a while" he told Jim.
The young man on the bed grunted sleepily and the deputy returned to the parlor.
Pauline, still in her kitchen apron, smiled in at the door upon him and her father.
"You two go out on the porch and smoke your pipes," she said. "I have to finish my work in the kitchen, then I have to go down to the cellar and take care of the milk. Ill not be long."
Pierre, an obedient parent, rose and moved toward the porch. Before he left the room Goodheart took the precaution to lock the bedroom door and pocket the key. He was a little ashamed of this, but he knew that Go-Get-'Em Jim was a very competent and energetic person. Convicted and sentenced though he was, Clanton still boasted with cool aplomb that there would be no hanging on the sixth. The deputy strolled round to the back of the house to make sure his assistant was still on the job. After a few words with the man he returned to the porch. He was satisfied there was no possible chance of an escape. The prisoner lay handcuffed and tied to a bed by the champion roper of the Southwest. The door of the room was locked Both exits from the house were guarded. Jack felt that he could safely enjoy a smoke.
Chapter XXXI
Goodheart Makes a Promise and Breaks It
Pauline was a singularly honest little soul, but she now discovered in herself unsuspected capacity for duplicity. She went singing about her work, apparently care-free as a lark. Presently, still humming a French chanson, she appeared on the porch swinging a key, passed the two men with a gay little nod, and disappeared around the corner of the house to the cellar.
The rancher apologized for the key. "We've had to lock the cellar lately since so many movers have been going through on this road. Eh bien! Our hams—they took wings and flew."
Polly rattled the milk pans for a moment or two and then listened. From above there came to her the sound of three faint raps on the woodwork of the bed. She crept up the stairs that led from the cellar into the house. At the top of them was a trapdoor. Very slowly and carefully she pushed this up. Through the opening she passed into a bedroom.
Softly the girl stole to the bed. From the cellar she had brought a butcher knife and with this she sawed at the rope which bound the prisoner.
"But your handcuffs. What can we do about them?" she whispered.
Clanton stretched his stiff muscles. He made no answer in words. For a moment or two his arms writhed, then from out of the iron bracelet his long slender hand slowly twisted. Soon the second wrist was also free.
"I've had a lot of fun poked at my girl hands, but they come in useful sometimes," he murmured.
"I'll have to hurry back or I'll be missed," she told him. "You'll find a saddled horse in the aspens."
He caught her by the shoulders and held her fast. "You've been the truest little friend ever a man had. You've stuck by me an' believed in me even when I didn't believe in myself any longer. No matter what folks said about me or about you for takin' an interest in such a scamp, you never quit fightin' to keep me decent. I've heard tell of guardian angels—well, that's what you've been to me, little pilgrim."
"I haven't forgotten the boy who rode up Escondido Cañon to save me from death and dishonor," Pauline cried softly.
"You've paid that debt fifty times. I owe you more than I can tell. I wisht I knew a way to pay it."
Her soft and dusky eyes clung to his pleadingly. "If you get away, Jim, you will be good, won't you?"
"I'll be as good as I've got it in me to be. I don't know how good that is, Polly. But I'll do my level best."
"Oh, I'm so glad," she whispered. "Good luck—heaps of it."
He was not quite sure whether it was his privilege to kiss the parted red lips upturned to him, but he took a chance and was not rebuked.
Pauline went noiselessly down the steps again into the cellar while Clanton held the trapdoor. He lowered it inch by inch so that it would not creak, then spread over it the Navajo rug that had been there before the entrance of the girl.
Pierre Roubideau was still on his first pipe when Polly came round the corner of the house and stopped at the porch steps.
"I want to show you our new colt, Jack," she said to the deputy. This matter-of-fact statement came a little shyly and a little tremulously from her lips. Her heart was beating furiously.
The officer rose at once. "Just a minute," he said, and went into the house.
He unlocked the door of the room where Clanton was and glanced in. The prisoner lay on the bed in the moonlight, the blankets drawn over him. From his deep, regular breathing Jack judged him to be asleep. He relocked the door and joined Pauline.
The face of the girl was very white in the moonlight. Her big eyes flashed at him a question. Had he discovered that his prisoner was free?
They walked slowly toward the corral. From it Goodheart could see the front of the house, but not the cellar entrance at the side. Neither of them spoke until they reached the fence. He turned and leaned his elbows against it, facing the house.
Pauline was under great nervous tension. Her lips were dry and her throat parched. If the guard at the rear caught sight of the prisoner while he was escaping, Clanton would certainly be shot down. She knew Jim better than to hope that he would let himself be taken again alive.
The conscience of the girl troubled her too. She was doing this to save the life of a friend, but it was impossible not to feel a sense of treachery toward this other friend whose approval was so much more vital to her happiness. Would Jack think that she had conspired against his honor in an underhanded way? He was a man of strict principles. Would he cast her off and have no more to do with her?
She woke from her worries to discover that an emotional climax was imminent. Jack was telling her, in awkward, broken phrases, of his love for her. Polly had waited a long time for his confession, but coming at this hour it filled/her with shame and distress. What an evil chance that he should be blurting out the story of his faith and trust in her while she was in the act of betraying him!
"Don't, Jack, don't!" she begged.
"It's all right," he said gently. "I know you don't care for me. But I had to tell you. Just had to do it. Couldn't keep still any longer. It's all right, Polly. I can stand it. I didn't go for to worry you."
She wept.
Her tears distressed him. He urged her to forget his presumption. She had been so good to him that he had spoken in spite of himself.
Pauline found she could not let him deceive himself. If she let him go now, perhaps he might never come back.
"You goose!"
Though the words came smothered through her handkerchief, he gained incredible comfort from them.
"Polly!" he cried.
"Don't you say a word, Jack," she ordered. "Let me do the talking."
"If you'll tell me that—that—you care anything for—for—"
"—For a big stupid who is too modest ever to think enough of himself," she completed. "Well, I do. I care a great deal for him."
"You don't mean—"
"I do, too. That's just what I mean. No, you keep back there till I'm through, Jack. I want to find out if you love me as much as I do you."
"Polly!" he cried a second time.
Her small face was very serious and white in the moonshine.
"Suppose we don't agree about something. Say I do a thing that seems right to me, but it doesn't seem right to you. What then?"
"It'll seem right to me if you do it," he answered.
"That's just a compliment."
"No, it's the truth. Whatever you do seems right to me."
"But suppose I do something that you think is wrong. Perhaps it may seem to you disloyal."
"If you do it because you think you ought to I'll not find it disloyal."
"Sure, Jack?"
"Certain sure," he answered.
"It's a promise?"
"It's a promise."
Little imps of mischief bubbled into the brown eyes. "Then why don't you kiss me, goose?"
He caught her to him with a fierce rapture.
There came to them the sudden sound of drumming hoofs. A shot rang out in the night. Goodheart, with the first kiss of his sweetheart almost on his lips, flung Pauline aside and ran to the house.
The other guard met him at the front steps. "By God, he's gone!" the man cried.
"Clanton?"
"Yep."
"Can't be. He was handcuffed, tied to the bed, and locked in. I've got the key in my pocket."
The deputy sheriff took the steps at one bound, flung himself across the parlor, and unlocked the door. One glance showed him the empty bed, the displaced rug, and the trapdoor. He stepped forward and picked up the bits of rope and the handcuffs.
"Some one cut the rope and freed him," he said, confounded at the impossibility of the thing that had occurred.
"Must of slipped his hands out of the cuffs, looks like," the guard suggested.
"He got me to give him a bigger size—complained they chafed his wrists."
"Some trick that, if he has got kid hands."
The chill eyes of Goodheart gimleted into those of his assistant. "Did you do this, Brad? God help you if you did."
A light step sounded on the threshold. Pauline came into the room. "I did it, Jack," she said.
"You!"
"I came up through the trapdoor when I was in the cellar. I cut the rope and told him there was a horse saddled in the aspens."
Thoughts raced in his bewildered mind. She had planned all this carefully. Almost under his very eyes she had done it. Then she had lured him from the house to give Clanton a better chance. She had let him make love to her so that she could keep him at the corral while the prisoner escaped. It was all a trick. Even now she was laughing up her sleeve at the way she had made a fool of him.
"You saddled the horse and left it there." His statement was a question, too.
"Yes. I had to save him. I knew he was innocent."
All the explanations she had intended shriveled up before the scorn in his eyes. He brushed past her without a word and strode out of the house.
Pauline went to her room and flung herself on the bed. After a time her father came in and sat down beside the girl. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"I know what you think, dad," she said without turning her head. "But I couldn't help it, I had to do it."
"It may make you trouble, ma petite."
"I can't help that. Jim didn't kill Mr. Webb. I know it."
"After a fair trial a jury said he did, Polly. We have to take their word for it."
"You think I did wrong then."
"You did what you think was right. In my heart is no blame for you."
He comforted her as best he could and left her to sleep. But she did not sleep. All through the night she lay and listened. She was miserably unhappy. Her head and her heart ached. Jack had promised that she should be the judge of what was right for her to do, and at the first test he had failed her. She made excuses for him, but the hurt of her disappointment could not be assuaged.
In the early morning she heard the clatter of horses' hoofs in the yard. During the night she had not undressed. Now she rose and went out to meet her lover. He was at the stable, a gaunt figure, hollow-eyed, dusty, and stern. He had failed to recapture his prisoner.
"Jack," she pleaded, reaching out a hand timidly toward him.
Again he rejected her advance in grim silence. Swinging to the saddle, he rode out of the gate and down the road toward Live-Oaks.
With a little whimper Polly moved blindly to the house through her tears.